‘After Terry I’ll introduce you to our no-buttons dressmaker, Donna. She can make an outfit to cater to any man’s fantasy and she’s an absolute genius with Velcro. Her dresses are designed to fly off you if you stick your tits out forcefully or squeeze your buttocks hard.’
‘God!’
Brianna laughs. ‘I think you’ll find it good for tips. Punters are usually so amazed and entertained they’ll tip you all over again to see a repeat performance. And if you find a “lucky” outfit that you make a lot of money in you can ask her to make you a copy.’
‘OK,’ I agree, as she pushes the door open and we start the tour. The place is massive. The restaurant and lounge are downstairs and the club is upstairs. At the end of our look around she introduces me to Josh. He must be at least six feet six inches tall. He has small eyes, a shaved head and a neck thicker than my waist. He nods his greeting.
After meeting him I am taken to a small room where I meet Terry. After the introductions Brianna leaves telling me she will send Donna around to look in on us.
‘Sit yourself down,’ Terry invites merrily. She is in her thirties and full of bright chatter. She tells me I have a very different look and I should play on that. First she does my hair, backcombing it from the top of my head and stiffening it with hairspray before combing the front end back so my hair becomes tall and big. She is very precise and very sure in what she does.
I watch her in the mirror as she quickly and expertly applies a layer of foundation, using a darker tone to emphasize my cheekbones, and give my chin a more pointy look. Then she carefully draws my eyes with blue eyeliner focusing attention to their slant and bringing out their color. Afterwards she glues on fake eyelashes. It is a surprise how foreign and heavy they feel. With a wand she dusts glitter on the ends.
‘Nearly there,’ she says, and paints my lips rose pink. As a final touch she plants a beauty spot on one cheek.
‘And now for the magic touch. We have a Chinese girl here called Jade who carries an intricate fan and makes it part of her routine, but you can become known as…’ She brings out a plastic flower from her box and holds it behind my ear. ‘The girl with the flower.’
I stare at my transformation. The idea is seductive and even I cannot help but fall for the pure poetry of ‘the girl with the flower’ line, but… ‘Look, Terry, I don’t want to insult you or anything, but don’t you think it’s all a bit much? I look like a transvestite.’
Terry covers her mouth and peals of laughter escape from between her fingers. ‘Don’t worry. The lights on stage are very bright and afterwards it is very dim in the shadows. You will be the perfect fantasy in both types of lighting,’ she says and switches off the bright lights that surround the mirror. And suddenly in the dim there is this fantasy creature. I stare at her curiously almost in disbelief. Is that really me? Some of the glitter has fallen from my sweeping lashes onto my cheeks and they sparkle like magic dust.
‘See?’ she says gleefully.
‘Yeah, I get it now,’ I agree with a smile.
She switches the lights back on.
As she is arranging my hair around my shoulders Donna comes in after knocking softly. Her hair is pulled back in a messy bun and she has the look of a harried housewife but her voice is low and melodious.
‘Well, dear. What kind of clothes would you like to wear? I could get you a nice long gown with a Mandarin neckline going. Some of the other girls wear it and it works very well if you have the slit going right up to the crotch.’
I think of my grandmother’s beautiful silk cheongsams with their demure side slits and I suddenly miss her so much I lose the ability to speak. I just nod.
‘What color?’
‘Whatever you think is best.’
‘Either blue to match your eyes or deep red to catch attention.’
‘Deep red then.’
In full fantasy mode I find my way to the changing rooms. It feels as if I have accidentally stepped backstage during a Miss World contest. Unbelievably beautiful girls of every race speaking a cacophony of languages are in various stages of undress. In all the madness of shaving creams, tampons, sequined G-strings and feather boas I spot the black girl who became geometric patterns in the dark.
I experience an instant sense of solidarity with her. There is something about her I really like. Even at our audition I recognized her as one of those straight people. No bullshit. What you see is what you get. I go up to her. She is sitting in front of a mirror applying her make-up.
‘Hey, remember me?’
She regards me in the mirror with cool eyes. ‘Sure I do. How are the knees?’
‘Fine. I’m Jewel by the way. What’s your name?’
She carefully glues on a strip of false eyelashes and says, ‘Melanie.’
‘In ancient Greek that means “the black girl”.’
She stares at me in the mirror, one eye extravagantly lashed, the other oddly bare. The coolness is gone. She is as impressed as I had wanted her to be. ‘Where did you learn that?’
I’m not about to tell her that. ‘I was interested in Greek mythology when I was younger.’